What’s more fun than reading an argument between two anonymous Internet users? Following along with that same argument rendered as a courtroom-style debate between defense lawyer Phoenix Wright, of Ace Attorney fame, and his suave prosecutor rival Miles Edgeworth. Now, with the help of a new user-created bot, any argument can be turned into an all-out battle between the two lawyers – shouts of “Objection!” and all.
The bot was created by Reddit user Micah, who goes by the name “micah5”. It uses a neural network to judge whether comments are positive or negative in tone, and chooses the appropriate character portraits for each piece of the argument. Particularly emphatic negative statement will be accompanied by an “Objection!” voice clip and speech bubble. One commenter, typically whoever begins the argument, is assigned the role of Phoenix, while the other is Edgeworth. Should other Reddit users contribute to the argument, their comments will be assigned to witnesses, detectives, assistants and other characters from the Ace Attorney franchise.
Micah posted a video example of the bot’s function on his YouTube channel. It features an argument between two Reddit users regarding the appropriate use of slang.
According to Micah, users can try out the bot themselves by commenting “!objectionbot” in any comment thread. The video will take ten minutes to make, and the bot will send you a link when it has finished working. As it is still in progress, its creator has acknowledged that there may be bugs and errors as the bot continues to be improved in the future. Micah has also made the bot’s source code available to read and access via GitHub.
Next time you get into an argument on Reddit, don’t be surprised if it winds up headed straight to court!
